Tesla switches on giant battery to shore up Australia’s grid

Tesla switched on the world’s biggest lithium ion battery on Friday in time to feed Australia’s shaky power grid for the first day of summer, meeting a promise by Elon Musk to build it in 100 days or give it free.

“South Australia is now leading the world in dispatchable renewable energy,” state Premier Jay Weatherill said at the official launch at the Hornsdale wind farm, owned by private French firm Neoen.

Tesla won a bid in July to build the 129-megawatt hour battery for South Australia, which expanded in wind power far quicker than the rest of the country, but has suffered a string of blackouts over the past 18 months.

In a politically charged debate, opponents of the state’s renewables push have argued that the battery is a “Hollywood solution” in a country that still relies on fossil fuels, mainly coal, for two-thirds of its electricity.

Supporters, however, say it will help stabilise the grid in a state that now gets more than 40 per cent of its electricity from wind energy, but needs help when the wind dies down.

A wind turbine is seen at the Tesla battery plant outside of Jamestown

“Storage can respond within a fraction of a second. It can address those stability issues very quickly without needing to resort to using large power plants,” said Praveen Kathpal, vice president of AES Energy, a losing bidder to build the battery.

Highlighting industry hopes for the take-up of battery storage, Tesla CEO Elon Musk visited the site some 225kms north of the state capital Adelaide in July, hailing the battery as “just the beginning”.

The state has yet to reveal how much it is paying Tesla.

Weatherill came under fire last year after the entire state went black following a major storm, and raced to shore up the state’s grid with a A$510 million ($385 million) plan, including ordering the big battery and installing diesel-fuelled turbines.

AES’s Kathpal, who is also chairman of the US Energy Storage Association, said South Australia’s commitment to turn to energy storage was an important step for the rest of the industry.

It is incredible that a $50 million infrastructure project can be produced, installed and commissioned in the middle of nowhere on a remote island in less than 100 days.

This too can happen in Cyprus if backhanders, facilitation fees and hangers on are eliminated from the Sunny Isle and the Taxpayers’ pockets.

Plasma Dawn

Where there’s a will there’s away. Plus, 40% of its electricity from wind energy is pretty impressive too to begin with. The battery system will likely raise that percentage because it will store the wind energy generated during low-demand periods (e,g., late night) instead of wasting it.

Bilbo Bawbag

Yea … but could they build an almost completed town square in less than 10 years?? 😉

Alex

“Global warming has not accelerated temperature rise in 23 years, according to a new study by the University of Alabama Huntsville climate scientist John Christy, Richard McNider did the survey. No warming in the atmosphere or below 23 years and counting.”
There is no scientific evidence that the earth is warming due to human activity. There is only computer models with forecasts going out for 50 years. If you put rubbish into computers, guess what you get out?
The hoax continues whilst Musk cons you into making millions for himself.
But there is some good news – Algore is becoming suicidal….

Roger Thecabinboy

you are misquoting the scientists = Christy and McNider claim it is the rate of warming that has not accelerated. not that there has been no warming indeed they found the rate of warming has been 0.096 degrees Celsius per decade after “the removal of volcanic cooling in the early part of the record,” which “is essentially the same value we determined in 1994 … using only 15 years of data.” – Chtristy and McNider are well known as skeptics of Anthropogenic warming.

in this respect John Christy recently used a cumulative total solar irradiance (TSI) index to argue that the Sun, not CO2, caused most of the recent global warming. This cumulative-TSI-based approach is flawed, t

In the 1st edition of his hotspot blogpost/”report”, Christy claims that 150mb is the tropical upper troposphere:
“On the Existence of a “Tropical Hot Spot” & The Validity of EPA’s CO2 Endangerment Finding” (page pages 23, 25, and 59)

But in the 2nd edition of his blogpost/”report”, he claims that 150mb is the tropical stratosphere:
“On the Existence of a “Tropical Hot Spot” & The Validity of EPA’s CO2 Endangerment Finding, Abridged Research Report, Second Edition” (pages 24, 25, and 70)

So in the transition from the 1st to the 2nd edition, Christy re-labelled upper tropospheric temperature as stratospheric temperature, with the effect of making it look like the stratosphere warmed. He did this despite the fact that the stratosphere actually cooled (as shown in a source Christy cited in his “report”; see the Sherwood paper cited on page 23 of the “report’s” first edition). Christy’s re-labeling is convenient for his position, because Christy’s solar warming hypothesis implies stratospheric warming. Furthermore, CO2-induced global warming would result in stratospheric cooling, and Christy’s “report” is committed to saying that CO2 has had no significant impact on temperature records.

So Christy’s self-contradiction on atmospheric temperature, allowed him to claim that CO2 had no significant effect on temperature and that the Sun caused most of the recent global warming.

Plasma Dawn

1. You have totally wasted your time if your aim was to rebut Alex. He is an incorrigible, ultraright, ignorant, bigot, racist, anti-science work of art without peer on this forum. Besides, he frequently blocks people whose comments he dislikes.

1. You have not totally asted your time if your aim was to rebut Alex. People like him need to be put on their spot, whether they read the rebuttals or not, for the sake of all other readers of this article.

3. Well done!

Alex

Yes the rate of warming has not accelerated. Good news don’t you think?
“This cumulative-TSI-based approach is flawed, t” You wan’t to go and cut and paste the bit that is missing from your research?
Cheer up there is no man made global warming to worry about, only left wing zealots trying to steal our money.
Your computer is like all computers, it spits out what you put in……

Roger Thecabinboy

But Christy is widely known to have an agenda of his own, and a number of flaws have been found in his research, over the years, indeed I understand other ananlysis of the same data set leads to the very opposite conclusion…that warming is accelarating and this is principally due to manmade emmissions of CO2 and other Greenhouse gasses. Arehnnius in 1894 demonstrated the link between co2 and temperature, and the actual rise we have seen since accurate measurements started very much correspond to what one would Calculate based on the measured rise in Co2 levels, which are man made. As it is, a lot of the heat is being absorbed by the ocean….and that is why the last hurricane season was one of the most active known….

Plasma Dawn

Good luck with that ignoramus… He wouldn’t acknowledge the unconvenient truth if it hit him in the face.

Roger Thecabinboy

See the latest…his response would be funny if it was not so tragic…snowflakes? You are quite correct about him, and science dies not read…

Alex

Would you like a list of global alarmists who are widely known , like you, to have an agenda of his own?

There is no doubt that man made global warming is not proven. The ice is not melting due to you having a car. By the way, I do hope you find not have a car, otherwise would that not make you a hypocrite?

It is people like you that are keeping millions of people in poverty, by demanding that we pursue and subsidise ineffective energy alternatives paid for by higher taxes.

Algore is a prime example of the fat hypocrite, private jet, huge mansions lecturing the poor with his propaganda.

The earth warms, the earth cools and has done for centuries, long before the industrial revolution, but you guys saw an opportunity to create an industry out of fear and the lefties all jumped on the bandwagon.

You rely on computer models and forecasts that go beyond your lifetimes. Smart, but still cheats.

Roger Thecabinboy

Under some circumstances some renewables like wind and solar are now proving to be cheaper without subsidies than even gas, a process that will accelarate. Renewables now employ more people in the USA than fossils.

The Alarmists as you sneeringly call them consitute the 97% of scientists in Climate Change. The Deniers are mostly funded by the big buisiness eg Koch Industries, (I call them Koch suckers) through organisations like the Heartland Institute, an Independant Institute (and if you should read this David J. Theroux, no I am not in receipt of funds from anyone in respect anything I may post about Climate Change – I am truly Independant – can the same be said for you and your institute?)

The early work can be dated to Fourier in the 1820’s who first appreciated how the Atmosphere trapped heat, which was further developed by Tyndal in the 1850’s who established the particular Greenhouse properties of CO2 and H20.

In the late 1890’s Arhenius and Högbom developed the concepts of anthropogenic influence on Climate – Ahrenius quantifying how changes in CO2 levels would affect temperature, with Högbom calculating how much C02 was being generated and by 1908 Arhenius had modern theory pretty much in place, later refined by others as better information was gathered about the artmosphere and better lab equipement developed. His assements were confirmed by Hulbert in 1931. This was also further developed by Callender in 1938.
This was all against the backgroud that the majority of other scientists did not then agree with those theories, but something changed so the mionority are now the Majority, principally flowing from Plass’ seminal work in 1956. By this time there had been number advances in technology which assisted in refiining and improving on the work of Arhenius, Högbom, Hulbert and Callendar, though CO2 measurement technology was still relatively primative and the Influences of the ocean were misunderstood.

Revelle showed the influence of the oceans, which not been properly factored in. Bolin and Eriksson and Budyko, began to work seriously on the effects of future CO2 emiisions while keeling developed C02 measuerement techniques. Within just two years (by 1960) Revelle was able to show CO2 levels were increasing in line with expectations after taking into account Oceanic absorbtion, and all the time the correlation between temperature rises (which are recorded) and increasing CO2 (also mesaured) has been shown with increasing reliability.

So no it is not computer models one relies upon – there have been measured increases in both CO2 and temperature over time which can be correlated by methods developed long before computers existed.

It is those who deny Climate change how now have to claim that global waming is some sort of conspiracy or hoax, when the real conspiracy is that being perpetrated by big buisiness just as happened with the health risks of tobacco and where once Astrphysicist, Fred Singer, (whose worlk is widely criticised) has plainly taken 40 peices of silver from both Big Tobacco and Big Chemical

As for cheats, you may care to read the report “Learning from mistakes in climate research” Benestad, R.E., Nuccitelli, D., Lewandowsky, S. et al. Theor Appl Climatol (2016) 126: 699. which clearly shows that Athropogenic Climate Change deniers are widely guilty of bending the facts and manipulating the data, and when that is corrected their papers show that Anthropogenic climate change is real, and then you might care to read a Press article by Myles Allen and Richard Millar, “When media sceptics misrepresent our climate research we must speak out “in which these scientist discuss the fact that many press claims made about their reseach are ” not correct, ie fake news which they repudiate: the Daily Mirror had to retract one such article.

And in any event, whet ever you may say does NOT change the science.

Alex

Only if you combine governmental subsidies with the depressed price of oil does wind and solar look competitive – but of course it is neither reliable or sufficient – calculate that in and check out the state South Australia is in with power cuts, and you see the real world of how unreliable these alternatives still are. As far as the “industry” that you have “created” again, it relies on subsidies without which most would be unemployed.

I believe that the earth’s climate changes and had done before humans lived on earth. If we think that there have been ice ages and other times when our planet has been warmer than warm – when we did not populate the earth – then how can it be our fault?

The truth is that global warming is a hoax, invented as a political football by the left. Just like the Universities, Media and Internet – political correctness is used to raise taxes and keep the poor poor.

Universities produce masses of wasted talent, bludgeoned into silence – not allowed to argue or debate, cowed into submission by liberal elites.

The Media spew propaganda designed to suppress free speech so that their “liberal progressive” falsehoods are seen as the “truth”.

The Internet of Google and Facebook are slanted toward the same ghoulish outcomes – the right is seen as Facists, and nothing must be written or said that would melt a snowflake.

All of this from a minority of idiots who make sure that white males get the blame while the deviants take the high ground.

The global alarmists rely on computer forecast models to predict climate change, not next week, because you will mostly all still be around then! No, they predict long enough away to frighten people who will not be around. 30, 40 or 50 years from now disaster will strike us – how convenient!

Fossil fuels have delivered and continue to provide wealth creation to billions of people – without it we would not have the economy we have or heat our homes or live the lives we lead. You have politicised climate change to the point where arguments are not heard,

We are told to stop cow’s farting and not to use toilet paper because it’s causing global warming! You are smart – pretending to give us solutions to the planet’s demise, whilst lying through your teeth.

I do not believe humans have the power to change nature. I think God made us unique and different from all other creatures and the fact that we have developed this earth and uplifted so many people by gainfully exploiting the world’s abundant resources is a good thing that God would continue to allow us to do.

You lie about the polar caps melting; you told us 20 years ago that in 20 years time armageddon would be on us – where is it? Science is not about being 97% right any more than it is about being 51% right.

Being jealous and spiteful towards wealthy, successful people just means that you cannot crack it Roger – try harder boy!

Becuase tobacco is harmful to you does not lead us to believe farting will lead to the end of the world.

Why work for Big Chemical when you can earn more working for the progressive liberal movement?

The best part of your thesis is the last bit – “whatever you may say does NOT (gosh in capitals) change the science. An attitude that only a failure could have. It encapsulates everything that is wrong with your thesis – incoherent, vague, dictatorial, vein and inacurate……

Roger Thecabinboy

Plasma Dawn, how right you are, not one shred of rational arguement let alone fact, just an incoherent stream of political invective by Alex which totally ignores the apolitical history of the development of climate science , st least until recently, and where it is Koch suckers like Alex who have so politicised the debate, then only recently, at the behest of the Big Kochs of this world.

And as for bringing the big sky fairy into it…

He really is a waste of space…

Plasma Dawn

I think you reply to Alex in in error and should have been a reply to me.

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